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halothenthehorns · 6 months

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Chapter 10: I SCOOP POOP

"Whoever said hard work builds character is built out of shit," Alex scowled as he read the new chapter title.

"Thank you," Percy said in surprise. "I was immediately thinking I was going to hear five different cracks about cleaning up my room."

"Your worst smelly socks never got that bad," Thalia said in mock hurt he would say such a thing.

"You're a turd blossom. There, that what you wanted?" Jason grinned.

"And I'm back to loathing these more every minute," Percy sighed.

I lost hope when I saw the horses' teeth.

"It wasn't the smell, it wasn't the time limit," Magnus agreed. "It was canines in the horse mouth, and frankly, I cannot blame you."

"There's some nightmare fuel I'd be willing to make," Alex snickered.

As I got closer to the fence, I held my shirt over my nose to block the smell. One stallion waded through the muck and whinnied angrily at me. He bared his teeth, which were pointed like a bear's.

I tried to talk to him in my mind. I can do that with most horses.

Hi, I told him. I'm going to clean your stables. Won't that be great?

Yes! The horse said. Come inside! Eat you! Tasty half-blood!

But I'm Poseidon's son, I protested. He created horses.

Usually this gets me VIP treatment in the equestrian world, but not this time.

"I'm sure you needed that humbling moment at least," Nico chuckled.

Yes! The horse agreed enthusiastically. Poseidon can come in, too! We will eat you both! Seafood!

"I think you should summon Poseidon there Percy," Thalia agreed sadly. "He'd make everything in a twelve mile radius vanish to the bottom of the ocean just for implying that."

"Not the outcome I'm particularly hoping for," Percy sighed.

Seafood! The other horses chimed in as they waded through the field.

Flies were buzzing everywhere, and the heat of the day didn't make the smell any better. I'd had some idea that I could do this challenge, because I remembered how Hercules had done it. He'd channeled a river into the stables and cleaned them out that way. I figured I could maybe control the water.

"Of course the part where Hercules didn't get eaten by the flesh eating horses is the part you forgot," Jason frowned.

"I just don't think they could have," Percy shrugged. Considering every monster he'd ever faced, he was pretty sure the guy was near invulnerable.

But if I couldn't get close to the horses without getting eaten, that was a problem. And the river was downhill from the stables, a lot farther away than I'd realized, almost half a mile. The problem of the poop looked a lot bigger up close. I picked up a rusted shovel and experimentally scooped some away from the fence line. Great. Only four billion shovelfuls to go.

The sun was already sinking. I had a few hours at best. I decided the river was my only hope. At least it would be easier to think at the riverside than it was here. I set off downhill.

"Can you summon a horse made of water and have it stampede through the place to wash everything?" Alex asked critically.

"I do not think so," Percy said, though not for lack of wanting to.

When I got to the river, I found a girl waiting for me. She was wearing jeans and a green T-shirt and her long brown hair was braided with river grass. She had a stern look on her face. Her arms were crossed.

"You haven't even met her yet and she's pissed at you," Jason began to clap slowly. "That's a new record Percy!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm just full of those today," Percy groaned.

"Oh no you don't," she said.

I stared at her. "Are you a naiad?"

"I really didn't think she was the farmers daughter," Will snorted.

"Not chesty enough," Percy smirked. "Ouch!"

"Come on Percy, you should know better," Will shook his head as Thalia pulled out her knife next to smack him with.

She rolled her eyes. "Of course!"

"But you speak English. And you're out of the water."

"What, you don't think we can act human if we want to?"

"Note to self," Magnus promised. It was actually really beautiful, the more he thought about it, something his mother would have been delighted over. That everything in nature had a spirit, a life force, a name. He still remembered their long hikes and taking stops at spots just like this river, and it was an exhilarating moment to know he might go back there someday with a Greek kid to ask a naiad if they remembered Natalie Chase.

I'd never thought about it. I kind of felt stupid, though, because I'd seen plenty of naiads at camp, and they'd never done much more than giggle and wave at me from the bottom of the canoe lake.

"Once again, you're not stupid for not realizing something nobody explained to you," Thalia said robustly. "You never knew better before this point, and frankly, it's not something you figure out until it's bad news." She already had a bad feeling where this was going, and that time limit felt really pressing. Annabeth had told her what Percy had said he'd done, but she still felt anxious until it got to that point.

"Look," I said. "I just came to ask—"

"I know who you are," she said. "And I know what you want. And the answer is no! I'm not going to have my river used again to clean that filthy stable."

"Again?" Magnus asked with a kind of awe that had eluded him up to this point. "Wow," he couldn't imagine time stretching back that far, to when Hercules had done it first. Everything that had changed since, everywhere on the planet that wasn't changed like this river. It really pressed in like nothing before how timeless this world was.

Percy couldn't exactly share in his moment. All he'd heard was the word no, and all his friends were in danger.

"But—"

"Oh, save it, sea boy.

"I really should start calling you Seabiscuit," Thalia chuckled.

"Or Ponyboy," Alex tacked in.

Percy felt like he vaguely recognized both and rolled his eyes without care for whatever they were anyways.

You ocean-god types always think you're soooo much more important than some little river, don't you? Well let me tell you, this naiad is not going to be pushed around just because your daddy is Poseidon.

"Percy's never pushed anyone around," Will frowned, entirely hurt on Percy's behalf. "I'm sorry she's had bad experiences with other kids of Poseidon in the past, and that she's taking it out on you."

"Yeah," Percy agreed in a hollow kind of voice. This was going as bad as it possibly could, and he was starting to get a sick feeling the sea couldn't cure what the results might have been.

This is freshwater territory, mister. The last guy who asked me this favor—oh, he was way better-looking than you, by the way—he convinced me, and that was the worst mistake I've ever made! Do you have any idea what all that horse manure does to my ecosystem? Do I look like a sewage treatment plant to you? My fish will die. I'll never get the much out of my plants. I'll be sick for years. NO THANK YOU!"

"I bet Hercules didn't even apologize," Thalia sneered as she put a gentle hand on Percy's shoulder.

"Yeah," Percy said again, but it wasn't making him feel any better this time to realize that he might not be able to save his friends because he wasn't a jerk.

The way she talked reminded me of my mortal friend, Rachel Elizabeth Dare—kind of like she was punching me with words. I couldn't blame the naiad. Now that I thought about it, I'd be pretty mad if somebody dumped four million pounds of manure in my home. But still...

"I'm, um, guessing that much fertilizer isn't good for the environment," Magnus said unhelpfully.

"That is nature taking way to much into its course, which is never a good thing," Thalia agreed.

"My friends are in danger," I told her.

"Well, that's too bad! But it's not my problem. And you're not going to ruin my river."

"What do you even say to that?" Alex asked, answering his own question. There wasn't much Percy could do.

She looked like she was ready for a fight. Her fists were balled, but I thought I heard a little quiver in her voice. Suddenly I realized that despite her angry attitude, she was afraid of me. She probably thought I was going to fight her for control of the river, and she was worried she would lose.

Nico couldn't imagine many other half bloods in the same situation even stopping to realize the same thing. It was moments like this where he could still look at Percy and feel safe in knowing he was a hero, even if he wasn't infallible.

The thought made me sad. I felt like a bully, a son of Poseidon throwing his weight around.

I sat down on a tree stump. "Okay, you win."

"Any other person," Alex shook his head, "and I do mean any, other, person, I would have suspected of setting up some sort of trickery. Hell, maybe even you under other circumstances. I still remember how great of a water bed sales man you are." This naiad wasn't a monster though, and even if it took another four thousand years for her ecosystem to go back to normal with no permanent damage, it was a day longer than Percy was ever going to be willing to put her through.

The naiad looked surprised. "Really?"

"I'm not going to fight you. It's your river."

She relaxed her shoulders. "Oh. Oh, good. I mean—good thing for you!"

"Just admit it, she really had you on the ropes Percy," Jason grinned faintly just because he had faith it all worked out. Percy looked glum now because inspiration of a brilliant new way hadn't struck yet, he was sure of it, as chaotic a mastermind as he could be.

"It's a secret that should never leave this room," Percy managed a laugh, only proving Jason's assumption.

"But my friends and I are going to get sold to the Titans if I don't clean those stables by sunset. And I don't know how."

The river gurgled along cheerfully. A snake slid through the water and ducked its head under.

Will grimaced and was very grateful that wasn't some secret god about to pop up and help, he wouldn't have trusted it.

Finally the naiad sighed.

"I'll tell you a secret, son of the sea god. Scoop up some dirt."

"Is she going to have you build her a sandcastle to make up for this debacle?" Magnus grinned.

"That would be a fair trade," Percy said with a blank look. He hoped she wasn't about to tell him to shove it or something.

"What?"

"You heard me."

I crouched down and scooped up a handful of Texas dirt. It was dry and black and spotted with tiny clumps of white rock...No, something besides rock.

"Those are shells," the naiad said. "Petrified seashells. Millions of years ago, even before the time of the gods, when only Gaea and Ouranos reigned, this land was under the water. It was part of the sea."

"If she's going to punish me with a history lesson I'll take back the sandcastle," Percy's frown intensified where on earth she was going with this.

"Don't underestimate the past Percy, I'd have thought you learned that by now," Nico said with a raised brow. He'd heard through the walls that night, Percy explaining to Annabeth how he'd solved this problem and it was the naiad's idea. He'd been so exhausted by that point it had been like falling asleep listening to Percy telling him a story, what he'd been longing for weeks on end alone in that labyrinth. For the blurriest moment between sleep and nightmares, he'd swear he even felt a warm brush as if Percy had been there next to him.

His crush was gone, more or less, of that he was sure now. He didn't really want Percy's attention or affection anymore. Percy was an awakening of a part of him he still didn't particularly like.

It was so different hearing it played back in an actual memory, no grandiose exclamations and feats of power as he literally pulled the ocean up. Just a small, quiet moment with a little river spirit helping him solve a problem that Nico was beginning to appreciate more and more, to help Percy feel like a grounded, real person.

Suddenly I saw what she meant. There were little pieces of ancient sea urchins in my hand, mollusk shells. Even the limestone rocks had impressions of seashells embedded in them.

"That is very cool," Magnus admitted. When you slept on dirt to much, you began to lose interest in it pretty quickly. Now he might scoop up a handful at the park next time and hope there wasn't just dog crap around.

"Nature is beautiful," Alex agreed with a secretive smile. The way everything blended together to coexist had always fascinated him. His first ever time playing with his future materials had been trying to make a snake.

His dad had of course thrown it away, but he still treasured the memory of that silly putty looking thing, all the messy, bulgy, ill-conceived proportions of it as he rubbed at his tattoo now.

"Okay," I said. "What good does that do me?"

"You're not so different from me, demigod. Even when I'm out of the water, the water is within me. It is my life source." She stepped back, put her feet in the river, and smiled. "I hope you find a way to rescue your friends."

And with that she turned to liquid and melted into the river.

"If she was trying to give you inspiration, I think she needed to hit you with a bigger lightbulb," Will grinned faintly.

"I'm sorry I can't go around and be his generator," Thalia chuckled.

"I'm going to tie you two together and laugh as everybody at Camp pulls sparklers out of your ears," Percy rolled his eyes.

"I bet I could shake some pixie dust out of them too, and I do mean the kind that'll make me achieve flight," Alex tagged in.

The sun was touching the hills when I got back to the stables. Somebody must've come by and fed the horses, because they were tearing into huge animal carcasses.

Percy felt a quiver of anxiety hum through him. If Eurytion had dragged Grover along to do this as some extra form of punishment and he'd seemingly vanished, if Grover had been trying to send him some kind of helpful message through his empathy link and he'd been to anxious to even notice. Grover knew he'd never abandon him, but it still made him even twitcher to not have gotten that chance to see him.

I couldn't tell what kind of animal, and I really didn't want to know. If it was possible for the stables to get more disgusting, fifty horses tearing into raw meat did it.

"I'm pretty confident someone did that just for that extra kick in your ass right now, with spurs," Will agreed to Percy's troubled frown somehow growing the more words were said.

"Well I'm nobody's prized pony," Percy tried to turn it into a scowl, tried to make it seem like he was being challenged and he'd come out on top.

He'd felt the heat simmering down though, the sun felt like it was moving in fast forward to mock him how little time he had left to figure this out. It was nowhere near the beautiful painting of the endless Texas beauty he'd always heard about and would be quite grateful to never see again after this day.

Seafood! one thought when he saw me.

"It's not a bad nickname for you," Alex said fairly. "You are on a seafood diet."

Percy rolled his eyes hard. "That joke is for seven-year-olds Alex, do better!"

Alex nodded seriously, as if taking that to heart.

Come in! We're still hungry!

"This is what happens when half your diet is desserts Percy," Thalia glibly reminded. "People start mistaking you for a cupcake."

"They're horses Thalia, I warned you in the last book they're not all that bright," Percy scoffed.

What was I supposed to do? I couldn't use the river. And the fact that this place had been under water a million years ago didn't exactly help me now. I looked at the little calcified seashell in my palm, then at the huge mountain of dung.

Frustrated, I threw the shell into the poop. I was about to turn my back on the horses when I heard a sound.

PFFFFFFT! Like a balloon with a leak.

"That's what it sounds like when Percy gets an idea," Jason said in surprise, and Percy frowned if his knee-jerk reaction to something happening was mocking him. He'd been spending to much time around Thalia.

I looked down where I had thrown the shell. A tiny spout of water was shooting out of the muck.

"No way," Magnus said in a daze. How many different ways could this one kid continue breaking the laws of the universe?

"No way," I muttered.

"That's two, anyone going for three," Will flashed his fingers around like a hopeful salesman.

"Magnus is the only one still gullible enough to not instantly know better," Alex shrugged.

Hesitantly, I stepped toward the fence. "Get bigger," I told the waterspout.

SPOOOOOOOSH!

"No way! And it's voice command!" Jason burst out laughing, but it also sounded a tad terrified. Maybe he was now worried Percy was going to make a geyser come out of him next time he annoyed Percy.

They were all to busy laughing at Jason to manage anything back.

Water shot three feet into the air and kept bubbling. It was impossible, but there it was. A couple of horses came over to check it out. One put his mouth to the spring and recoiled.

Yuck! he said. Salty!

"You would do so great at kid's parties," Alex was starting to snicker a little to hard to be intelligible. "Charge by the spout, add some rainbow colors to this fountain!"

It was seawater in the middle of a Texas ranch. I scooped up another handful of dirt and picked out the shell fossils. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I ran around the length of the stable, throwing shells into the dung piles. Everywhere a shell hit, a saltwater spring erupted.

Stop! The horses cried. Meat is good! Baths are bad!

There were tears coming out of Will's face, and Magnus was laughing so hard he didn't seem likely to stop any time soon.

"If you can't get to the toilet, bring the toilet to you," Thalia managed through near hysterics.

"I hate you all," but Percy couldn't even pretend to say that like he meant it as he watched Nico hold his sides. He'd wanted that kid to have more fun in his life and was more than happy to deliver it himself. He wasn't denying himself how funny this situation was trying to describe it like this. Ocean front property in Texas wasn't even a strange statement compared to everything else he'd done so far.

Then I noticed the water wasn't running out of the stables or flowing downhill like water normally would. It simply bubbled around each spring and sank into the ground, taking the dung with it. The horse poop dissolved in the saltwater, leaving regular old wet dirt.

"More!" I yelled.

There was a tugging sensation in my gut, and the waterspouts exploded like the world's largest carwash. Salt water shot twenty feet into the air. The horses went crazy, running back and forth as the geysers sprayed them from all directions. Mountains of poop began to melt like ice.

The tugging sensation became more intense, painful even, but there was something exhilarating about seeing all that salt water. I had made this. I had brought the ocean to this hillside.

Stop, lord! a horse cried. Stop, please!

Water was sloshing everywhere now. The horses were drenched, and some were panicking and slipping in the mud. The poop was completely gone, tons of it just dissolved into the earth, and the water was now starting to pool, trickling out of the stable, making a hundred little streams down toward the river.

"Stop," I told the water.

Nothing happened.

Somebody might have slammed on the brakes in a clown car. Some hiccupping and giggles still spurted the room, but the humor died off fast as Percy rubbed low on his stomach, looking a little clammy around the edges. He'd never pushed his powers this far before. Percy had already proved multiple times in this room he didn't have complete control, and none of them wanted to hear about these horses getting hurt the first time he found that out.

The pain in my gut was building. If I didn't shut off the geysers soon, the salt water would run into the river and poison the fish and plants.

"Between Grover and that naiad, we will turn you into an environmentalist yet," Thalia said from her cushy spot beside him without a second of concern he'd manage it.

Percy smiled in surprise at her instant faith he'd get it though. No jokes he'd needed Annabeth to hold his hand, no teasing he'd need someone else to come along to turn off his spout. Despite all their near-constant teasing, Percy never failed to smile along nobody in here actively thought him dumb even in instances where he wouldn't have blamed them thinking the worst.

"Stop!" I concentrated all my might on shutting off the force of the sea.

Suddenly the geysers shut down. I collapsed to my knees, exhausted.

"I'm guessing you don't consider that a rejuvenating bath," Jason offered.

"I didn't get offered a seaweed scrub and hot wax," Percy said like he had any clue what either of those were.

In front of me was a shiny clean horse stable, a field of wet salty mud, and fifty horses that had been scoured so thoroughly their coats gleamed. Even the meat scraps between their teeth had been washed out.

"Now if only you could do that to your room," Will snorted. "You might actually win the cabin inspection one day."

"Is the prize a flesh-eating horse? Because that's the only win I'd care about," Percy chuckled along.

We won't eat you! the horses wailed. Please, lord!, no more salty baths!

"All purpose wash," Alex said with an inspired snap to his fingers. "Put literally anything through there, it comes out clean."

"I bet people who needed to give their cats a bath would pay big," Magnus agreed, "though you should work on the settings."

"I'll get right on that if my high-school education doesn't work out," Percy said not entirely sarcastically. He didn't have a lot of faith in getting a diploma anyways, let alone living that long.

"On one condition," I said. "You only eat the food your handlers give you from now on. Not people. Or I'll be back with more seashells!"

The horses whinnied and made me a whole lot of promises that they would be good flesh-eating horses from now on,

Alex still paused for a moment to appreciate the look on Magnus' face at that sentence existing in any context. He hoped this wouldn't dampen Magnus's enjoyment of feeding them apples in the future.

but I didn't stick around to chat. The sun was going down. I turned and ran full speed toward the ranch house.

Nobody was really surprised he'd gotten up from a new, painful level of power exposure and probably drained himself to the bone pouring out all that energy into this, and then ran flat off into the sunset. And it wasn't even for food. All he was missing was the horse and cowboy hat to be the picturesque hero on that ranch to challenge someone to a draw at sundown.

I smelled barbecue before I reached the house, and that made me madder than ever, because I really love barbecue.

"I hope Geryon can grow his limbs back, because Percy's going to be tearing them off," Alex said with confidence.

"I hope he at least provided a vegetarian option for Grover, for the victory feast," Magnus nodded.

"I, um, wouldn't hold my breath," Will winced. Geryon was the worst example of southern hospitality.

The deck was set up for a party. Streamers and balloons decorated the railing. Geryon was flipping burgers on a huge barbecue cooker made from an oil drum.

"Grover's probably having some awful flashbacks to Polyphemus," Jason frowned.

"I never thought about that," Magnus agreed in horror. "Gods, what did he eat there?"

"Well I sure didn't ask him," Percy winced.

Eurytion lounged at a picnic table, picking his fingernails with a knife. The two-headed dog sniffed the ribs and burgers that were frying on the grill. And then I saw my friends: Tyson, Grover, Annabeth, and Nico all tossed in a corner, tied up like rodeo animals, with their ankles and wrists roped together and their mouths gagged.

Percy, Thalia, and Will blanched a special color in unison at having to experience the thrill of hearing them so vulnerable and uncomfortable and tortured in this particular way.

"What kind of cows do they have on that farm again?" Magnus asked in concern. "Do practicing on cherry red immortal bovines make them strong enough to even truss Tyson up?" He was probably overestimating Tyson's strength, but it still blew his mind there wasn't a dent anywhere in sight. He was now imagining the poor guy running and getting caught in a lasso.

"Orthus stayed on Annabeth's throat while Eurytion came around and tied us all up," Nico reminded. They'd started with him, or he would have run. That thought gave him a sickening feeling to remember what a horrible brat he'd been back then, only caring about himself.

"Let them go!" I yelled, still out of breath from running up the steps. "I cleaned the stables!"

Geryon turned. He wore an apron on each chest, with one word on each, so together they spelled out: KISS—THE—CHEF.

"I will not," Alex said in disgust.

"How do you think he ties the middle one? How weirdly long are his arms?" Percy asked. They'd looked vaguely proportional enough they shouldn't anyways.

"Eurytion came over and tied it for him," Nico shrugged.

"Huh," Percy said in appreciation.

"Did you, now? How'd you manage it?"

I was pretty impatient, but I told him.

He nodded appreciatively. "Very ingenious. It would've been better if you'd poisoned that pesky naiad, but no matter."

"You really told him everything?" Jason looked at him in disappointment. "You should have lied, just told him you came up with the idea to throw the shells in. I don't know if he can do anything to that naiad, but it would have been better to leave her out of it."

"We've all established I'm not an impulsive liar," Percy groaned, "I wouldn't say I'm better under pressure!"

"Well, thankfully he's going to die, so it won't be an immediate problem," Jason shrugged, but he worried what was going to happen to all those animals all of a sudden once these two were dispatched. Maybe a call to the Hunters and Thalia would show up.

"Let my friends go," I said. "We had a deal."

"Ah, I've been thinking about that. The problem is, if I let them go, I don't get paid."

"You promised!"

Geryon made a tsk-tsk noise. "But did you make me swear on the River Styx? No you didn't. So it's not binding. When you're conducting business, sonny, you should always get a binding oath."

"Next time you should shake on it," Alex sighed. "Then he might think twice about double-crossing you."

"Yeah, yeah, lesson learned," Percy's face was twitching into that steady, concentrated look of a fight about to break out. It took effort for him to close his green eyes and open them again, take a breath and remind himself not to start throwing geysers around in here.

I drew my sword. Orthus growled. One head leaned down next to Grover's ear and bared its fangs.

There was a collective flinch around the room, one that helped Percy ease more into relaxing. Like Briares switching faces, he looked like a completely different person as he smiled at all these people who cared if Grover got a scratch on him.

"Eurytion," Geryon said, "the boy is starting to annoy me. Kill him."

Eurytion studied me. I didn't like my odds against him and that huge club.

"And the dog," Magnus added with dread.

Percy braced himself, then tried to scold himself, forcing his hand to loosen around Riptide in preparation.

"Kill him yourself," Eurytion said.

"Yes!" Jason yelped. "I called it!"

"I have no idea how I did that!" Percy shouted just as loud in delirious delight.

Thalia started laughing hard at these two, not least because she knew Percy was serious. He just had that effect on the right kind of people, someone to be followed. She, ironically, had to work for that and wasn't particularly fond of it.

Geryon raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Eurytion grumbled. "You keep sending me out to do your dirty work. You pick fights for no good reason, and I'm getting tired of dying for you. You want to fight the kid, do it yourself."

"His absolute confidence he would die from fighting you though," Will told him in admiration. "I don't know if it's your record proceeding you or he's actually a shit fighter."

"I'm still trying to figure out how Ares claimed him?" Percy said, completely unphased by the blatant flattery. "If a god adopts you, do they go on the birth certificate?"

Thalia flicked his ear and called him an idiot while Alex read on somehow even more eagerly. One of the fighters was out, but that just meant Geryon had to get his hands dirty which apparently didn't happen very often, so this should be, interesting to see how he used that extra body to his advantage.

It was the most un-Ares like thing I'd ever heard son of Ares say.

"He should come back to camp," Will grinned, "or we could have a summer program down there!"

"If you try to put me on a horse, you are responsible for the results," Nico said with a wounded frown, all for this fight dragging out for the next hundred pages. He was not going to be happy with what came after, and considered it a blessing this had already gone on as long as it had.

"I'll patch every bruise," Will promised at once. "It won't even be that bad, I promise!"

For some reason, Nico believed him. Will would have the ability none before had to make an animal like him.

Geryon threw down his spatula. "You dare defy me? I should fire you right now!"

"And who'd take care of your cattle? Orthus, heel."

"This is so much better than the cliché you can't fire me, I quit line," Magnus grinned. "This man's clearly the useful one around there."

Will started humming the lyrics to Friends in Low Places and Magnus laughed hard in surprise, his mom had loved that one.

The dog immediately stopped growling at Grover and came to sit by the cowherd's feet.

"Fine!" Geryon snarled. "I'll deal with you later, after the boy is dead!"

He picked up two carving knives and threw them at me. I deflected one with my sword. The other impaled itself in the picnic table an inch from Eurytion's hand.

"Child's play," Percy scoffed, brushing his hair out of his eyes to keep his twitching hands from drawing his sword.

"Don't get cocky," Thalia said, her voice not shaking, but still meaning every word. This had been a monster he quite possibly couldn't have defeated if things hadn't worked out exactly as they had. Annabeth had been pretty incredulous when she described it days later when all was said and done in the quest.

I went on the attack. Geryon parried my first strike with a pair of red-hot tongs and lunged at my face with a barbecue fork. I got inside his next thrust and stabbed him right through the middle chest.

"Smart," Alex grinned, letting his eyes fall away with near boredom for how easy that was. If those horses hadn't needed the bath so bad, he'd be complaining Percy should have just done that from the start. "I bet his organs are all weird and spread out, my money would be on the middle one too."

"Aghhh!" He crumpled to his knees. I waited for him to disintegrate, the way monsters usually do. But instead he just grimaced and started to stand up. The wound in his chef's apron started to heal.

"Nice try, sonny," he said. "Thing is, I have three hearts. The perfect backup system."

"Oh!" Alex sounded way to delighted Percy's mind was now racing in circles of how bad that was.

"How did you not bring any of those seashells with you?" Thalia demanded. "I can't imagine how useful those things could have kept being!"

"We really need to work on your strategies with that sword," Jason agreed with a frown. "You're a great dueler, but you need more tricks up your sleeve than the jab and dodge motions you've perfected." He was sure that panic on Percy's face meant that whatever happened next hadn't gone that great.

"That water jetpack idea is starting to sound like a good idea now, isn't it?" Nico chuckled.

Percy was ignoring them, his sole attention on Alex with his friends' lives still on the line. Just because Eurytion had sat out of this fight didn't mean he'd protect them while they were vulnerable, and he wouldn't put it past Geryon to put a sword at their throat to make him yield.

He tipped over the barbecue, and coals spilled everywhere. One landed next to Annabeth's face, and she let out a muffled scream. Tyson strained against his bonds, but even his strength wasn't enough to break them.

Percy's foot was starting to fidget uncontrollably, causing tremors on the floor and little spurts of water to pop up like underwater fountains in between the cracks. Tyson had been through enough already without having to deal with this! How was it fair he'd missed out on Annabeth calling him a seaweed brain twice for not getting to be here?!

I had to end this fight before my friends got hurt.

I jabbed Geryon in the left chest, but he only laughed. I stuck him in the right stomach. No good. I might as well have been sticking a sword in a teddy bear for all the reaction he showed.

"I bet you did stab your toys as a kid though," Alex chuckled.

Percy gave him a strange look, not wanting to admit he hadn't actively had many toys with Gabe around, and he'd cherished the few he had. He didn't blame Alex for thinking it though, he hadn't owned an article of clothing or a piece of paper he hadn't stabbed with a pencil until it was riddled.

Three hearts. The perfect backup system. Stabbing one at a time was no good....

I ran into the house.

"How long is a long sword?" Magnus asked.

"Not that long," Jason shook his head, and Percy was most likely untrained in it to boot.

"You mentioned tossing a javelin around once," Alex reminded. "Get any better practice at that with camp?"

"Not in the slightest," Percy sighed, his feet tapping out a pattern that was causing his little fountains to stop and start in a bizarre pattern like he was trying to send a secret message.

From Thalia's angle, it spelled Help.

"Coward!" he cried. "Come back and die right!"

"So the opposite of a coward is to run away and don't die," Will gave him a thumbs up. "Doing great work Perce!"

"I'm not taking advice from him on this," Percy scoffed, even if he didn't disagree.

The living room walls were decorated with a bunch of gruesome hunting trophies—stuffed deer and dragon heads, a gun case, a sword display, and a bow with a quiver.

"I swear you could point at ten people in Texas and one of them has a gun," Nico rolled his eyes.

"That's a hurtful stereotype," Will pouted. "You don't hear me making jokes about you eating nothing but pasta."

"Okay, okay, I take it back," Nico promised at once with a grin.

Geryon threw his barbecue fork, and it thudded into the wall right next to my head. He drew two swords from the wall display. "Your head's gonna go right there, Jackson! Next to the grizzly bear!"

"There's a compliment somewhere in there," Thalia nodded.

"I'd have preferred the dragon, I'd clash with the fur," Percy sniffed.

I had a crazy idea.

Jason mocked clicked a pen and loudly noted, "that's four for four."

Percy and Nico both winced though, last time that had happened Bianca had paid the price.

I dropped Riptide and grabbed the bow off the wall.

"We have yet to hear you be in an archery class," Alex noted. "How is this going to go?"

"I clearly haven't shared the infamous story of Percy losing an arrow in the ocean," Will shook his head at his own lapse. "I should remind you all that is nowhere near the archery range by the way! This massive makara actually came out to spit it back at him and hit the target."

"Thanks Will, here I thought you were nice and had just chosen to gloss over that moment," Percy groaned among the laughter.

I was the worst archery shot in the world. I couldn't hit the targets at camp, much less a bull's eye.

"You threw your sword at that Nemon Lion and hit his hind," Magnus reminded. "You clearly know the weight of that better than anything, couldn't you throw that?"

"I don't think I'd get enough weight behind it to manage this shot," Percy shrugged, though he wished he could have rather than going for a hail merry. He seemed calmer though, now that the solution was in sight, but for some reason the answer still eluded him of why he was even more stressed than when he'd been clueless how this was going to go. The geysers had stopped spelling out SOS anyways.

But I had no choice. I couldn't win this fight with a sword. I prayed to Artemis and Apollo, the twin archers, hoping they might take pity on me for once. Please, guys. Just one shot. Please.

"Artemis definitely owes you one," Alex agreed astutely, "and Apollo seemed to like you enough." He seemed pretty confident anyways this had worked out, and Percy tried to breathe easier it had. His anxious stomach should be settling.

I notched an arrow.

Geryon laughed. "You fool! One arrow is no better than one sword."

He raised his swords and charged. I dove sideways. Before he could turn, I shot my arrow into the side of his right chest. I heard THUMP, THUMP, THUMP, as the arrow passed clean through each of his chests and flew out his left side, embedding itself in the forehead of the grizzly bear trophy.

"Nobody tells me where to get hung," Percy puffed up his chest, only to oof as Thalia smacked him with an arrow. Only a tap, but pointy enough he deflated.

Geryon dropped his swords. He turned and stared at me. "You can't shoot. They told me you couldn't..."

Jason shivered with displeasure Kronos was still so well informed about the quest, and Percy's abilities in particular, when there was unequivocally no doubt any of them were betraying Percy. Juno had said they'd pass through the ranch too, hopefully this was just a unanimous stopping point for anybody in the labyrinth and Kronos and Luke had been banking on this.

His face turned a sickly shade of green. He collapsed to his knees and began crumbling into sand, until all that was left were three cooking aprons and an oversized pair of cowboy boots.

"I'd have preferred the hearts as trophies," Alex sniffed. "Oooh, deck of playing cards with monsters! He's the King of Hearts!"

"I, um, hope you get lots of orders Alex," Percy chuckled.

"Oh don't worry, you'll be in there," Alex promised. "You're the wild card who beats them all obviously."

Percy looked a tad terrified rather than flattered imagining himself in some of the outfits he'd seen on those cards.

I got my friends untied. Eurytion didn't try to stop me. Then I stoked up the barbecue and threw the food into the flames as a burnt offering for Artemis and Apollo.

"Guess it's for the best, I'm not sure I'd trust that monster not to make everything on that grill burnt anyways," Percy sighed for his empty stomach. He couldn't have eaten a single rib right now if he wanted to, he still felt like he was missing something about this experience. For the life of him though couldn't imagine what.

"Or, you know, cursed," Will reminded with a still grumpy frown. It was the only way he could imagine his dad had let this go on, anybody who ate that beef died a horrible death. Which also meant it wasn't the nicest offering.

"Thanks, guys," I said. "I owe you one."

The sky thundered in the distance, so I figured maybe the burgers smelled okay.

Jason side eyed Thalia with unease for that one though. Only Zeus had yet been mentioned to do that, and he didn't think he'd share the button with the two gods in thanks. Hopefully he was just being paranoid, what other reason was there? The gods had shown up plenty of times now for whatever motivation they had. Like Will had said, Apollo had probably been meaning to decimate this place for centuries and just kept forgetting and blew a favor Percy's way now.

"Yay for Percy!" Tyson said.

"Can we tie up this cowherd now?" Nico asked.

"Yeah!" Grover agreed. "And that dog almost killed me!"

"Can't even blame them for wanting revenge," Will sympathized. It took a much bigger person than Geryon to let grudges go after being trussed up, and he certainly wouldn't have minded Eurytion getting a taste of his own medicine, just not permanently for abstaining from the fight.

I looked at Eurytion, who still was sitting relaxed at the picnic table. Orthus had both his heads on the cowherd's knees.

"How long will it take Geryon to re-form?" I asked him.

Eurytion shrugged. "Hundred years? He's not one of those fast re-formers, thank the gods. You've done me a favor."

"Without much help in return," Percy rolled his eyes, but he sounded more exasperated than actually upset. It had all worked out at least. He just wasn't going to lightly forgive somebody sicking their dog on his friends even if they hadn't gone through with it.

"You said you'd died for him before," I remembered. "How?"

"I've worked for that creep for thousands of years. Started as a regular half-blood, but I chose immortality when my dad offered it. Worst mistake I ever made.

"Now there's something we don't hear every day," Magnus yelped. So far all of these gods had seemed more than happy to skip through everybody's life and remind anyone they pleased how powerful they were. Braries wasn't the first example of immortality being so great, but it was nice to hear flat out some people also just regretted it for some reason, like normal 'people' still existed in this godhood pantheon.

Now I'm stuck here at this ranch. I can't leave. I can't quit. I just tend the cows and fight Geryon's fights. We're kinda tied together."

"Urgh, never, ever take a reward from Ares," Jason said in disgust. "Even those somehow sound more awful than his curses!"

"You have learned an important lesson today my friend," Percy nodded along.

"Maybe you can change things," I said.

Eurytion narrowed his eyes. "How?"

"Be nice to the animals. Take care of them. Stop selling them for food. And stop dealing with the Titans."

Eurytion thought about that. "That'd be all right."

"I'm guessing whoever came along to pay made one to many smart ass remarks about his servitude there," Nico said hopefully. It had seemed like a suspicious, quick change to him, and he'd been mentally giving Percy one hell of a tirade in his head about his perfect, stupid way to see the best in everybody, and his stupid, perfect naivety to think this guy would keep his word after one day around him, and his perfect stupid smile.

"Get the animals on your side, and they'll help you. Once Geryon gets back, maybe he'll be working for you this time."

"Mmmm, karma," Alex smacked his lips in appreciation. "Beats the best barbeque."

"Only with the right sauce," Magnus chuckled.

Eurytion grinned. "Now, that I could live with."

"You won't try to stop us leaving?"

"Shoot, no."

Annabeth rubbed her bruised wrists. She was still looking at Eurytion suspiciously. "Your boss said somebody paid for our safe passage. Who?"

The cowherd shrugged. "Maybe he was just saying that to fool you."

"It's possible, but I can't imagine who would bother. I thought he was just flat lying too," Will admitted. Truth be told, Will had no more clue who would only pay for some kids to get through, that seemed to horrible. He glanced to Nico, who had no reaction to this, but didn't pester for details only because he knew it was best not to let Percy's mind simmer on that.

"What about the Titans?" I asked. "Did you Iris-message them about Nico yet?"

"Nope. Geryon was waiting until after the barbecue. They don't know about him."

"Looks like he did have some gentlemen in him," Thalia snickered. "Conducting business after dinner!"

"I don't think I'll be back for seconds," Percy huffed.

Nico was glaring at me. I wasn't sure what to do about him. I doubted he would agree to come with us. On the other hand, I couldn't just let him roam around on his own.

"I'm not your responsibility!" Nico sounded stiff, more like he was arguing with himself than Percy. "You didn't have to care about me any which way!"

"But I did," Percy frowned, trying to keep in mind to choose his words carefully, but it was his first ever go of that. "I do. And it's not just because of Bianca, you know that right?"

"I didn't hear you chasing after Chris Rodrigez to tell him what a bad idea it was to be on Luke's ship," Nico sneered. "You only care about me because you found out I could be the prophecy kid."

"That is not it!" Percy looked legitimately offended. "Okay, so, I got to know your sister and I care about what's best for you slightly more than him!" Percy threw his hands up in exasperation. "I didn't want anything bad to happen to Chris either, it's awful the maze turned him into putty! I'm down there trying to stop Kronos so this doesn't happen to any other kids, including you, who is currently right in front of me and I want to try and help!"

Nico wasn't sure if he was speaking past tense or literally right now, but regardless he found himself cowed. He checked his temper and knew he was still holding a grudge against Percy for Bianca, and he was supposed to be letting that go! He just didn't want to hear what was about to happen.

To hear the last thing Bianca ever said to him again, to have it shoved in his face like a freakshow on display how his sister thought he was a sad, pathetic child who would always need looking after.

The silence lingered, and Nico apparently wasn't going to protest at least that anymore. Percy was looking anxiously between Nico and Thalia, he even poked her shoulder and gestured to him like he wanted her to jump in. Thalia just pursed her lips, she had even less idea about this kids life than him and had no idea what to say to him either, and it would sound even worse coming from a Hunter she was sure.

Alex kept reading in a soft, gentle kind of voice, like he had a little to much practice talking to someone in a vulnerable situation.

"You could stay here until we're done with our quest," I told him. "It would be safe."

"Safe?" Nico said. "What do you care if I'm safe? You got my sister killed!"

Nico spread his hands in silent apology of his own he had nothing else he could say to that, no matter how much he wanted to. Whether Bianca had known going into that statue would be her demise or not, she'd known full well how dangerous it was and done it anyways.

Percy just gave him a silent nod. To keep apologizing back and forth was doing nobody any good.

"Nico," Annabeth said, "that wasn't Percy's fault.

"I'm trying to imagine her blaming anything on Percy anymore," Jason snorted. "The world could end and she'd pat you on the head and tell you it's okay."

"And yet she blames me when her book mysteriously goes missing and tears my cabin apart," Percy chuckled. "I swear someone put it under my bed as a prank!"

"Uhhu," Will rolled his eyes. "Don't ever let either of them have the remote, they'll debrain each other with it fighting who gets to hold it."

The soft laughter that encircled the room gave Nico a chance to breathe for just a moment. He would not make creepy shadow puppets and ghosts appear again. He would not drop the temperature to sub-zero level. He was getting a handle on this!

And Geryon wasn't lying about Kronos wanting to capture you. If he knew who you were, he'd do anything to get you on his side."

"I'm not on anyone's side. And I'm not afraid."

"You should be," Annabeth said. "Your sister wouldn't want—"

"If you cared for my sister, you'd help me bring her back!"

Percy fiddled with his beaded necklace, his stomach in knots. He did understand exactly what Nico wanted, he didn't need to remind Nico every quest he'd been on had been to bring someone back from certain death, just not the whole nine yards of the soul part.

"A soul for a soul?" I said.

"Yes!"

Magnus still wanted to ask about that, about less extreme options Nico had tried first that were just as dangerous to indulge. He couldn't stand the idea of hope being infused into a hopeless journey...but wasn't that exactly what Percy did every summer? What if it worked...

"But if you didn't want my soul—"

"I'm not explaining anything to you!" He blinked tears out of his eyes. "And I will bring her back."

"Bianca wouldn't want to be brought back," I said. "Not like that."

"You didn't know her!" he shouted. "How do you know what she'd want?"

Jason kept the thought to himself he would hope he never knew anyone who would want that. Someone so selfish to take someone else's life to bring their own back. Nico didn't need to hear that though, they all knew he'd just been lashing out, and it was just awkward and painful to listen to as he sat with his head bowed.

I stared at the flames in the barbecue pit. I thought about the line in Annabeth's prophecy: You shall rise or fall by the ghost king's hand. That had to be Minos, and I had to convince Nico not to listen to him. "Let's ask Bianca."

The sky seemed to grow darker all of a sudden.

"I've tried," Nico said miserably. "She won't answer."

"Try again. I've got a feeling she'll answer with me here."

"Why would she?"

"Because she's been sending me Iris-messages," I said, suddenly sure of it. "She's been trying to warn me what you're up to, so I can protect you."

Nico still felt the impact of that like someone had thrown him in the barbeque pit instead of the burgers. That Percy was right, and he wouldn't have listened to Bianca even if she'd told him to stop. That he had to have his hand held and walked through the idea what he was doing was wrong, or gods, he might have actually gone through with it. That idea haunted him more than Minos ever had.

Nico shook his head. "That's impossible."

"One way to find out. You said you're not afraid." I turned to Eurytion. "We're going to need a pit, like a grave. And food and drinks."

"Percy," Annabeth warned. "I don't think this is a good—"

"All right," Nico said. "I'll try."

Will had no idea how he was supposed to resist the urge to hug Nico and never let go as desperately sad as he must have been to agree to that. Nico blatantly hadn't trusted Percy and Annabeth right then and still went through with it. He'd been watching this whole time, and Nico didn't seem to be pushing his emotions down anymore, but that didn't mean the fact that he was clearly miserable and tired was leagues better because there was just nothing to be done about that as he sat uselessly in place.

Eurytion scratched his beard. "There's a hole dug out back for a septic tank. We could use that. Cyclops boy, fetch my ice chest from the kitchen. I hope the dead like root beer."

"Okay, we're about halfway done and I need lunch," Alex announced as he snapped the book shut.

"Because me messing with manure and the promise of more dead people really got your stomach rumbling huh?" Percy asked even as he stretched and wearily stood up.

"No finer culinary experience than trying something new," he agreed cheerfully, giving them all the worrisome notion of what Alex was going off to his room to try to do with a happy meal.

#HDYSG #PJO #Percy Jackson #Thalia Grace #Jason Grace #Nico Di Angelo #Alex Fierro #Magnus Chase #Will Solace #solangelo #percabeth #fierrochase

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